Missing Him
by Antonia-x
Summary: Kate Bettany; series 2 epiode 1.


**Again, Kate wanted to tell her story, and it is a bit of ramble of everything, but this is one those things you do need to write at all hours of the morning. However, for Callie, Meggi & ficmouse because they are all equally lovely and this makes my day less of a write off, I feel.**

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Quite why she found herself in the back of a taxi driving down a road so very familiar - despite the vow she'd made to herself only five months previously - she realised that she'd never truthfully know. Missing him was a difficult thing to have to deal with in so many different aspects; no one knew quite how much he had meant to her, what he had meant to her and she couldn't find the words to explain it, and explain it in a way which people could understand. She could hope that they'd be able to see past the apparent family connection, but she knew that for many that would be almost impossible. She considered that her main difficulty in expressing how much she was hurting, quite how difficult she was finding his death to anyone was because she could already see the look of confusion on their face as they tried to comprehend how two people who had been brought up as family could have come to love the other in way which others considered that they shouldn't.

She knew as a teenager that her feelings ran far deeper than she should have ever let them, however, she knew that they were spiralling further and further from what they should regardless and she was powerless to stop them. It was a little over a year before she even learned that Jed's feelings for her had begun to match her own for him even in the tiniest way. She recognised that immediately as the source of their downfall, because the moment they were both aware they had found themselves embroiled in something that would have been very much disapproved of and they'd often spent half their days creeping around to meet in secret, yet they were both very much reluctant to break all contact. In the end their separation had been forced and she had often wondered, if much like now, the blame for this lay partly at her father's door. Whilst she held such strong feelings of guilt over Jed's death herself, she took a small amount of comfort in the fact that she could recognise her responsibility in the tragic turn of events and all she had wanted then, and even now, was answers; answers which would have prevented her from initiating the entire chain of events which had ended in her losing her most important person.

She raised her hand wiping away a silently fallen tear as she glanced out the window now seeing the old asylum in the distance; as far as she was aware, last communication with her father had informed her that the building was due a name change - under advice from the new sales employee in a vain hope that it would be able to cover the horrific past of the original building and that of the supposed accident which had claimed Jed's life. She considered that her trip with Molly had been meant to bring her similar feelings but she'd been unable to shake Jed from her every conscious thought, and she was unsure that she'd have wanted to even if she was able. However, much like her father, Molly had made her feel like she'd been missing him for too long; like the way in which she expected him still to be there when she opened her eyes every morning before she remembered the events of the previous months had gone on too long. Though she considered the possibility that perhaps Molly had grown sick and tired of being the one who was there to comfort her when the ever threatening tears did fall and she was unable to keep the sounds of his final moments from invading her mind. She didn't think that Molly had understood quite how haunted by Jed's presence she felt, even so many miles from where he'd last been, in a place he'd never inhabited; that she couldn't understand how devastated she felt on waking, despite what her dreams had been telling, and being confronted by the realisation that Jed really was dead.

She often pondered whether Ryan would have understood what she was feeling, after all he found living where they'd all once been happy far too difficult to bear after Jed's passing and had moved on with barely a word and fairly limited contact. She knew that she'd found living there difficult too, when she knew that Jed should have been sleeping in the next room, and that was her main reasoning to join Molly in her travels: a half-hearted attempt at distancing herself from the knowledge and reminders that she'd never see him again. However, in theory it had seemed like a logical solution but upon leaving the country she realised that it did not have the desired outcome. That was the lone reason in her decision to leave Molly with her yoga instructor in Thailand and packed her bags, booked a flight and made the decision to head home. She knew that home had meant Bedlam Heights now, and after much debate she had concluded that if she was destined to miss Jed forever, she might as well do so in the place where they were last together.

As the taxi pulled up outside the building so familiar yet provided her with no feeling of safety in spite of her calling it home for a time period now steadily approaching the two year mark. She closed her eyes tightly as she stepped out of the vehicle wishing that painful flashbacks would stop, yet when she surveyed her surrounding properly she could still hear Jed screaming her name, even as her eyes fell on an unfamiliar male figure currently placing the board of wood which was meant to wipe out the history of both Bettany Hospital and Bedlam Heights with a simple renaming. As she approached her conversation with the man was fleeting and she considered that unlike herself of old she had no intention on hanging around to get to know him better - though if she ever became interest she was certain her father would tell her.

Pulling her key from her bag she began the familiar wander through corridors and up stairs until she reached the door of the apartment she wasn't certain that she even wanted to enter. She was painfully aware that before her trip she'd become unhealthily attached and over protective of the small box room which had become Jed's. She knew she had kept it the way others may a shrine, but she'd packed everything up carefully, boxing everything according to how much the individual items had meant to her; ensuring that the box which contain the items of most sentimental value was the one which remained unsealed and atop the small bed, in order for her to have access to it at all times in case she'd felt the need to torture herself with the contents. An action she knew she'd engaged in on several occasions, the most memorable of such had been just a few days after his death and both Molly and Ryan had walked in to find her crying into the bed clothes she'd wrapped herself in while clutching a photograph of herself and Jed which had been taken just weeks beforehand. She noted the look of complete anguish on Molly's face immediately and her friend had retreated from the room as quickly as she'd entered.

Now that she was back in the room, she could picture the entire scene so vividly it was almost as if it were playing out in front of her yet again, she recalled that it had been Ryan who'd prised the photograph from her grip and he had been the one to join her on the tiny bed bundling her into his arms as he rocked her back and forth until she fell into an uneasy sleep. When she had woken some four hours later, she had turned to look into the room and had been confronted by the image of Ryan and Molly sitting cross legged by the side of the bed sipping tea and playing an effortless game of snap; the distinct lack of Jed in the scene in front of her had caused her to descend into the hysterical tears of the hours previous, and it was then through the tears and chocked sentences she had confessed to loving him. However, as Molly had leapt from the ground and pulled her into her arms kissing the top of her head gently, assuring her that it would stop hurting so much soon, she realised that they had missed her meaning completely - and whilst she did love Jed they had failed to realised she'd long since fallen in love with him.

She snapped herself from the memory quickly and was dismayed to feel the wetness of further tears streaming down her cheeks settling uncomfortably under her chin before disappearing into her scarf. She stepped closer to the box, opening the flap and pulling at the photograph envelope where she'd secured the recent images of Jed; the first one was her favourite and for a few short weeks it had take pride of place on the refrigerator door, she grazed her finger across the image of his face, almost feeling the warmth and smoothness of his skin that had been present the last time she'd been able to feel his physical presence by her side. She absentmindedly glanced at the remaining contents of the box and found nothing else of interest to her in this particular moment, however with a heavy heart she turned to leave the room and considered that she must actually make her arrival known to those people still alive.

In spite of how she felt about him, and how they'd left things before she'd left with Molly, she found herself unlocking yet another door and hoping that she would find her dad sooner rather than later because for the moment she knew she'd be able to see him without feeling anger and hatred towards him for Jed, however the longer she remained she felt she'd be unable to quash her real feelings. Yet upon seeing Keira stood in the middle of the kitchen painting she wasn't certain how to feel at all, though perhaps a little of her was grateful for the distraction that she'd brought for a few minutes. Even after the distraction of Keira she was unable to make the first meeting with her dad any more successful than she considered it would have been, a second meeting with the man from her arrival had not been high of her list of things to do either, but perhaps she'd have handled it better had he given her the space to talk to her dad - the fact that her dad didn't even seem to want that either, pretty much summed up how the rest of their life was destined to go and she knew in that moment that she'd never get to have the conversation about Jed and his death with him.

The conversation, or lack of, had not put her in best place in her mind and suddenly she had felt the need to be close to the one person who had understood her again; yet, nothing would have prepared her for the sight of his room not being empty - she'd made it clear when she'd left that at no point should it be disturbed, and this included showing it to potential tenants. She recognised that she'd lost her temper, during a second meeting with her father - willing him to understand why being in the haunted building hurt her quite so much, why it terrified her so much and that the nightmares she'd been having while there were still not completely gone.

She knew that she was reaching the stage of being unable to keep a lid on her emotions, and at the moment anger was all that was preventing her from breaking down completely and that prompted her dispute with Dan, prompted her furious march to her dad's flat. Yet upon arriving there and seeing what should have been apparent when she'd first seen Keira that morning, her anger had only increased though with it so had the frightening urge to breakdown, but it made her decision simple - she knew that she had to leave, and that she had to leave tonight.

Her return to her own flat would be brief, she'd yet to unpack, all she had to do was collect her bag and a few valued items from Jed's room and she could go leave without looking back because she knew that she'd be leaving no one who was important to her behind when she did so. She'd have to write to Molly, she considered, letting her know of her new living arrangements and given the late hour and darkened sky she had no idea quite where that would be.

Yet before she was able to make her unannounced departure she was confronted by that girl, Ellie she thought she'd said, the one Max had found somewhere - the girl who claimed to know Jed, though her story didn't hold together quite well enough for her liking. She chose not to voice this, and she had wondered if she could see them too, from the terrified look on her face it was as if she was expecting ghosts and she allowed herself a silent congratulations before pushing by her and leaving for good.

As she'd reached the outside of the building, she paused momentarily, to look up at the place she'd do her best never to see again, and almost laughed upon realising that she'd watched Jed do the very same thing the night he'd planned on leaving. Though Jed unlike herself hadn't been able to resist and he'd returned to the building which would eventually claim his life; the vain part in her, or the part which was in love with him, had wanted to believe that he'd returned to her and not the ghosts but she just wasn't certain. Looking around she was shocked, she knew it was something she had not expected to see in spite of the haunted house rumours and of Jed's word, yet it was true fear which had made her run, hindered by heels and a back pack she wasn't surprised she was caught. She'd screamed in shock, yet now she wasn't even certain she cared what came next, knowing whether anyone knew or not she couldn't bring herself to care about the one person who may possibly care about what happened to her; whilst the one she cared about was gone.

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**Thank you for reading, feel free to review and tell me what you thought, good or bad, because they do make me smile - always. **

**Annyx **


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